The present invention relates to a method for the printing or displaying of scripts whose characters are arranged next to one another in rows or underneath one another in columns. More particularly, the present invention relates to such a method wherein the printing or displaying takes place by using a raster-type recording device or a vectorially controllable recording device and a character generator which, from the data of a stored character supply, derives actuation signals for the elements of the raster recording device or for the deflection signals for the recording element of the vectorially controllable recording device producing the output characters.
Some scripts, for example the Chinese script, are of the type that texts can be arranged by the horizontal alignment of characters in rows and placing the rows one underneath the other as well as by the vertical arrangement of the characters in columns and arranging the columns next to one another. While in a handwritten text the horizontal or vertical arrangement can be freely selected without difficulty, different machine functions are required if such texts are printed by machine. Such different machine functions are, for example different shifting of paper and printing mechanism, different margin controls etc. in printers, and different controls for video screens. Therefore two machines performing different functions must be used for one and the same script if texts are to be printed in the above-stated different formats.